Kiev – Four-hundred years since their founding, the Baptists of Eastern Europe are optimistic about the future. That was evident at a festive event in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev on 30 August. Before an audience of 4.000, older Baptist leaders symbolically passed on the torch to younger ones by presenting them with a Bible and a communion cup. Representatives of 20 Slavic Baptist unions as well as leading representatives from other Ukrainian churches were present at the event. Among those in attendance were the President of the European Baptist Federation (EBF), Valeriu Ghiletchi (Chisinau/Moldova), and Tony Peck (Prague), the EBF’s General-Secretary. The Baptist movement had initially been founded in the backroom of an Amsterdam bakery in 1609. From there it spread out, initially to Britain and North America. During the mid-19th century, following the formation of the German Baptist church by the merchant Johann Gerhard Oncken, German Baptist missionaries carried the movement to
Eastern Europe. The festive sermon was held by a Baptist who himself unites the various wings of the Baptist movement: The well-known evangelist Victor Hamm (Winnipeg/Canada) is Director of the Billy-Graham-Association in the area of the former Soviet Union and speaks Russian, English and German. Conference head was Pavel Unguryan, Youth Director for the Ukrainian Baptist Union, lawyer and politician.

Peck: For inner-Baptist religious freedom
The festive event had been preceded by a three-day conference involving 250 representatives from Slavic Baptist unions in Europe, Central Asia, the USA and Australia. The central topic involved the matter of Baptist identity. Primary speaker at this conference was Alexander Turchinov, presently Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister. He is the member of a Baptist congregation in Kiev, in which he also frequently preaches. His primary topic involved religious freedom in Ukraine. He noted that the situation has been revolutionised since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. New freedoms have led to major growth among Ukrainian Baptists. Tony Peck stressed that religious liberty has nearly always been central in Baptist thinking. Its foundations are rooted in the Bible as well as in early Baptist writing. Baptists today are called to support the religious freedom also of such groups with whom they do not agree. He reminded listeners that Baptists had found themselves in a dilemma during the Soviet period. The book of Romans on the one hand commands Christians to subject themselves to government authorities. On the other hand, the Apostle Paul states clearly in Acts that “we must obey God rather than men”. Peck concluded that holding religious freedom high must also reflect itself in the lives of Baptists today. Baptists should not feel free to separate themselves from other Baptists solely because of differing views on superficial matters “not central to the Gospel or Baptist identity”.

Prayer for Uzbekistan
The conference expressed deep concern regarding the fact that Central Asian republics such as Uzbekistan no longer practice religious freedom. The conference therefore prayed for an improvement in the situation there. Peck lauded the conference in a conversation with the EBPS press service: “The events in Kiev were a great means of encouragement, especially to the smaller Baptist Unions.” They are “a worthy continuation of the EBF and BWA celebrations of 400 years of Baptist life in Amsterdam and Ede/Netherlands a few weeks previously.”

Ukraine has two official Baptist unions: the “All-Ukrainian Union of Churches of Evangelical Christian-Baptists” with its 2.800 congregations and more than 135.000 members makes it the largest Baptist union on the European continent. The “Brotherhood of Independent Baptist Churches and Ministries of Ukraine” consists of 130 congregations with more than 11.000 members.